Photo of man suspected of stealing flowers from a shop on Valentine’s Day.
CHICAGO (CBS) — If the flowers you ordered on Valentine’s Day never got there, you may now have an excuse.
CBS 2′s Ed Curran says one Chicago florist is blaming a thief for almost two dozen Valentine’s Day vases that vanished.
K&K Flowers, on South LaSalle, is jammed every Valentine’s Day.
“It’s completely chaotic,” said Mina Lee. “There are customers lined up the entire day”
That means wall to wall customers picking up flowers, and a bunch of guys doing deliveries.
“There are like 20 delivery men coming in and out, we have hundreds of arrangements, you know, everywhere,” Lee said.
Easy pickings for one guy, who the store’s owners say, took off with floral arrangements. He’s not a deliveryman or a customer, but cameras caught him leaving, several times, with his arms full of flowers.
“One time he actually brought a cart,” Lee said.
It was a bold move on a busy day, walking away with $2,000 in pilfered petals.
A nearby Bank Of America branch captured the thefts on tape, and will be providing it to police.
The store, which has been in business for 40 years, has never had anything like this happen before.
A total of 21 arrangements were taken, meaning 21 customers were left disappointed, some of them angry.
“I explained to them what had happened, and refunded all their money, and sent out more arrangements,” Lee said.
Although a police report’s been filed, investigators have not seen the bank video.
Police say the theft is still under investigation and requested the photo we just showed you.
